January has long been known as ‘the most depressing month’ – but this Monday has become known as the most depressing day in the whole year as people recover from the fun of Christmas and the weather is still dark and cold.

So for the fourth year running, an award-winning Shropshire Care Company has taken the unusual step of trying to cheer up every one of its customers across the county on this day - known as 'Blue Monday' - by hand-delivering bouquets of flowers.

Staff from multi-award-winning Bluebird Care, based in Shrewsbury, picked up the bouquets from Julie Nicholas Florist at The Market Place Battlefield Road, Shrewsbury, on Monday and care staff working across Shrewsbury, Church Stretton, Oswestry, Ellesmere and the surrounding areas took them out on their care calls to all clients.

The company provides at-home-care to vulnerable people of all ages, to allow them to remain living independently in their own homes and avoid going into hospital or care/nursing homes.

Claire Flavell, Director of Care at Bluebird Care based in Bayston Hill, said: "Some of our customers can be very lonely as they cope with various physical, mental and emotional difficulties and the Christmas period only heightens this. Our aim is stop them having to go into hospital and to stay at home where they are more comfortable, but this means a lot of our customers aren’t well and are dealing with serious illnesses and difficulties which can leave them feeling isolated.

“I know our care staff do a brilliant job – always going the extra mile wherever they can. Some even pick their customers favourite flowers and put them in their homes – so at this time of year we really felt we wanted to do something which might go some way to cheering our customers and their families up.

“We chose to do this on 'Blue Monday' – the day the media have coined the ‘most depressing day of the year’ and people are asked to carry out 'small acts' of kindness. We felt that this was a small gesture we could do to show all of our customers and their families how much we care and try and bring a smile to their faces.”